International Business Machines Corporation

Christian Ouazana

Bruno Centola

Claude Gomez

Patrick Michel

Michel Paul Verhaeghe

Bernard Sergent

An electronic board assembly carrying connectors on each side of its lower edge which is adapted to withstand the relatively strong forces required to insert or remove the assembly, e.g., from a backplane board, and yet provide many electrical contacts along the interconnection sites. The electronic board assembly comprises two symmetrical elementary PCBs electrically coupled together, each carrying a connector on its external lower edge. In one embodiment, these two PCBs are coupled together by a flexible adhesive insulative layer and maintained by mechanical devices such that the distance between these two connectors is set to a predetermined distance (to align precisely with the backplane board). The mechanical device used to maintain a predetermined distance between the two connectors of the assembly may comprise a U-shaped member, the upper part of this member being strategically inserted between these connectors. Electrical communication between these PCBs is accomplished using conductive vias or parts, within the adhesive insulative layer.

Electronic board assembly including two elementary boards each carrying connectors on an edge thereof

An apparatus and method for inserting and extracting printed circuit boards from a housing using screwing devices. A connector on the printed circuit board includes two tapped holes that cooperate with two threaded shafts held by the housing. The threaded shafts are operatively coupled to a common control shaft in such a way that rotating the control shaft in turn rotates the threaded shafts. Depending upon the rotation direction, the threaded shafts either screw or unscrew within the tapped holes so that the printed circuit board coupled to the connector is inserted or extracted.

Apparatus and method for inserting, retaining and extracting printed circuit boards

Device for cancelling the effects of the reflection in a signal transmission system ( ) including a driver ( ) and a plurality of n receivers ( ) wherein signals are sent according to a multipoint topology from the driver to the receivers, each receiver having an internal capacitance and sending back reflection signals to the driver each time a signal is transmitted thereto by the driver. The device comprises circuit means causing the signal resulting from the sequential reflections due to a given receiver and then due to the driver to have the same magnitude but the reverse sign as the sum of all signals received in the given receiver resulting from the reflections due to all receivers, and the net linking the driver to each receiver comprises delay means ( ) enabling the propagating time of a signal sent from the driver to this receiver to be identical for each receiver, whereby the total sum of all reflection signals arriving in the given receiver at the same time is equal to zero.

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St. Laurent du Var, France

Christian Ouazana